News of the collapse of the developers for the proposed £300million Caltongate project in Edinburgh brought out the doom and gloom merchants in force.

The controversial project, which had already been the subject of much resistance from protestors worried about its impact on a sensitive are a of the Old Town, looks set to be put on ice for sometime.

It is a hugely ambitious project creating a five star hotel, offices and homes and I am sure it will be revived when the good times return.

Although it is important for Scotland to have a pipeline of developments to support employment and revitalise cities and towns, we know big ones like this are going to face hurdles in getting funding from risk-averse banks.

Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that there is still a lot of construction work going on on developments which will eventually create jobs and provid enew homes.

We must be thankful the banks have not pulled the plug on them and any body driving around Scotland can see the evidence that there is much activity going on.

For example, in Edinburgh Miller Group is building an office complex for Kenmore while Spring side at Fountain bridge has houses and student halls under construction.

At Glasgow Harbour, Dandara is involvedina£85mproject creating five 16-22 storey high rise towers facing the River Clyde.

Work is drawing to a close on the revitalisation of the Clyde waterfront, which includes a new pedestrian bridge by the financial services district.

An dearlier this week plans were revealed for a major£80mregeneration plan for Glasgow's Savoy Centre, which will create one of the tallest buildings in the city.

Mean while, Aberdeen will see the opening of its new £250m Union Square retail and hotel development and transport hub this autumn.

It is also important to remind ourselves of what has been achieved during the property boom in all our cities.

Glasgow has athriving shopping centre, which includes the superb Buchanan Galleries development and the splendid Radisson hotel near Central Station.

The new Glasgow financial services district boasts many state-of-the-art offices and the water front has been vastly improved.

In Edinburgh, Standard Life and Scottish Widows have their headquarters in a formerly run down part of the city and the revamped St Andrew Square and Harvey Nichols' new store are now major attractions.

Dundee has also seen a huge amount of development in the city centre and the water front much improved, while Inverness boast salarge new covered shopping centre.

So, although we face tough times, money has been spent wisely on some beneficial projects when the going was good and we will benefit from that in the future.

Now is the time to start planning for the future and create a wish-list of projects. We must not forget that buildings need to be practical as well as attractive. Even in the good times new offices were built which still have not attracted enough tenants and we must analyse why that is.

But my over all message this week is to try to look at the positives, even when the negatives are massing.